Personalized gift for a loved one, or for one who has it ALL!

Merry Christmas to All! Donna today, sharing a photo craft I made to use as a beautiful gift for a loved one. The beauty of this craft is it's simplicity and personalization, using any photo you can copy with a laser printer, and print it to fit the size of the canvas you wish to tranfser your photo to.(or, as in my case, bring your photo to a copy center to be copied, the copy MUST be a laser print to work, home ink jets will not work) Here is the finished canvas...

I started with just a blank 8 x 10 canvas, my laser copy photo (be sure to "flip" or "reverse" your photo when printing!) and a jar of Liquitex Gel Medium, available through special order at Flamingo Scraps by contacting Suzanne directly. She will happily order any products available featured through our posts! I had excellent results with this brand of gel medium! (sorry the label is crooked, the OCD in me tried to fix it, to no avail, product is certainly unaffected!)

I am including a video tutorial on the process, as I could not explain in words better than this video tutorial shows it! After my transfer process was completed, I took Tim Holtz Black Soot Distress Paint and blended in the edges of the photo and painted the outside edges of the canvas. When the paint was dry I used a fine grit sand paper to distress the look, blending in the inherent imperfections of this technique. When finished with the distressing, the canvas was then sealed with a flat acrylic sealer to protect the entire canvas. All that's left is to wrap your gift and make the recipient wonder how you did it! This is a gift for my youngest son, commemorating a special time we had together while his three siblings were all in school, special times we will both always cherish. This photo details the imperfections that make these canvases so uniquely your own. The horizontal lines show where some of the gel medium did not transfer the photo, and to the left you can see where the distress paint was added, then distressed with the sand paper.

The Tim Holtz distress paints are also available through special order at Flamingo Scraps, you will want the entire set once you learn the beauty of these paints, I am a distress paint junkie!!!

Also, it's not too late to get in on the Tonya Live! Ustream event! Tonya is using the BasicGrey 25th and Pine kit, made available exclusively through Flamingo Scraps. Your kit will be packed full with the collection papers and ephemera. Tonya has an entire series on youtube, play lists made available weekly to hep you create your own December Daily, or just a commemorative album for the 2013 holidays. Best part, the kit is on SALE at Flamingo Scraps (kit), and to start just click HERE (tutorials)!

Merry Christmas to all of our Flock, Flock leaders, team, and to you, the readers of our posts, a happy and prosperous New Year for 2014!

As always, Scrappy Smiles! Donna Sullivan